Immortalis Is Not Suitable for Those Who Dislike Absurdist Horror Elements
Immortalis plunges readers into a realm where the grotesque and the ludicrous collide with relentless precision, crafting a tapestry of horror that defies conventional logic. This is not the tidy terror of ghosts or ghouls, nor the predictable slash of serial killers. It is the absurd, the irrational, the utterly unhinged machinery of a world governed by beings who revel in chaos disguised as order. If structured dread leaves you cold, if you crave rational monsters or sympathetic villains, turn away now. Immortalis demands tolerance for the bizarre, where a plague arrives via top hats, and an asylum director dances with a rotting head while his chair levitates in protest.
Consider the opening salvo in Khepriarth: a shipment of gentlemen’s hats, insufficient in number, sparks a village-wide brawl resolved by a ‘bee test’ for true gentility. Bees swarm a locked town hall, women succumb to flea-borne plague, and the survivors bury the infected alive, wives included, to preserve their own hides. The Lord complains to Count Tepes, who passes it upward to Theaten, an Immortalis who dines on living tribute. No one knows the sender, but rumours swirl. This is absurdity weaponised: everyday objects become vectors of doom, social rituals devolve into farce, and authority chains buckle under petty grievance.
Corax Asylum embodies this ethos in stone and suffering. Nicolas DeSilva, its proprietor, runs not a hospital but a carnival of cruelty. Patients roam filthy corridors lined with mirrors and clanging clocks, disoriented by blurred spectacles or underfloor heating that blisters bare feet. The ground floor boasts a banqueting suite and library for Nicolas alone, while the east wing holds oversized wheelchairs strewn with tortured forms. Dungeons below feature rusty surgical tools and whips; above, torture chambers house the iron maiden and brazen bull. Washrooms spew sewage for inmates to bathe in, pre-cut for optimal infection.
Nicolas declares anyone insane on whim, trading tributes to Irkalla for his psychiatric license, then driving victims mad to justify confinement. Ghouls like Chives manage the dead, while ravens carry complaints to Behmor, King of Hell, who burns them unread. Escaped Immoless Lucia endures the hall of mirrors, distorted reflections screaming from festering wounds, before Nicolas steps through the glass as the Long-Faced Demon, skull elongating in lustful hunger. He plays ‘run rabbit’, her blistered feet throbbing amid pulsating mirrors, until she collapses into his grasp.
Even creation reeks of the ridiculous. Primus splits Theaten into Vero and Evro, true self and primal urges, mergeable at will. Nicolas, son of Primus and Baer warrior Boaca, receives a ‘demonic education’ in Irkalla, emerging peculiar. Irkalla’s six circles govern contracts and punishment, watched by six mirrors, the Ad Sex Speculum. The Electi breed Immolesses every century to challenge Immortalis, but they fail spectacularly, ripped apart or roasted alive.
Sapari’s harbour master anchors ships with ferromagnetic boxes, slamming hulls together in polarity reversal. Aardvarks gifted vampirism devour wish-seekers en route to Ibliss’s ziggurat. Corax’s gramophone spins Demize’s severed head, animated by magic, cackling as Nicolas dances to screeching violins amid shrieking inmates. Chairs levitate, clocks chime discordantly, and ghouls hobble with detaching limbs. Nicolas, in orange silk or plaid monstrosities, collects pocket watches and declares hygiene a hygiene issue only for himself.
Absurdity permeates governance too. The Pauci Electi meet in rotting shipwreck Solis, drowning in whisky and poker, breeding demon-priest daughters for futile Immoless quests. Behmor, lesser Immortalis and Hell’s king, avoids work while Tanis plunders glaciers. Theaten dines with nobles on basted tribute, adjusting candles for shadow perfection, while Kane lurks feral in Varjoleto, machete gleaming.
Immortalis thrive on this madness. Theaten’s Vero elegance masks Kane’s barbarity; Nicolas’s jester facade conceals sadistic genius. Lilith’s cult in Neferaten’s sands breeds unrest, countered by Primus’s Darkbadb watchers. Tributes bred for slaughter, Immolesses dispatched to die, plagues via hats, hats via shipments, all orchestrated in eternal dusk under two horizon suns.
Immortalis is absurdist horror incarnate: a meticulously broken world where logic frays, cruelty entertains, and the monstrous caper in top hats. If such lunacy repels you, seek saner shores. For those who endure, it rewards with a symphony of the sublime grotesque, where every flea-infested hat and levitating chair heralds deeper delights of derangement.
Immortalis Book One August 2026